In vitro diagnostics (IVD) allows labs to assist in the diagnosis of disease based on assays performed on patient fluid samples. IVD includes various types of analytical tests and assays related to patient diagnosis and therapy that can be performed by analysis of a liquid sample taken from a patient's bodily fluids, or abscesses. These assays are typically conducted with automated clinical chemistry analyzers (analyzers) onto which fluid containers, such as tubes or vials containing patient samples have been loaded. The analyzer extracts a liquid sample from the vial and combines the sample with various reagents in special reaction cuvettes or tubes (referred to generally as reaction vessels). In some conventional systems, a modular approach is used for analyzers. A lab automation system can shuttle samples between one sample processing module (module) and another module. Modules may include one or more stations, including sample handling stations and testing stations (e.g., a unit that can specialize in certain types of assays or can otherwise provide testing services to the larger analyzer), which may include immunoassay (IA) and clinical chemistry (CC) stations. Some traditional IVD automation track systems comprise systems that are designed to transport samples from one fully independent module to another standalone module. This allows different types of tests to be specialized in two different stations or allows two redundant stations to be linked to increase the volume of sample throughput available.
An individual test may require one or more unique reagents to be combined with a sample and some reagents may also be used for multiple tests. IVD reagent manufacturers typically offer a wide testing menu that includes a large number of possible tests (using one or more reagents) to cover a range of conditions. Conventional systems may, however, perform only a small subset of the tests available from the possible test menu because the physical space occupied by the reagent packs make it impractical to create an analyzer with enough storage space to hold every possible reagent. Conventional systems also typically store more than one pack for each frequently used reagent to increase walk away time. Accordingly, the amount of available space for storing a variety of types of reagents is decreased, thereby further reducing the number of tests that may be run from the available test menu.
Some conventional systems may use multiple analyzers and/or a larger number of modules and load different subsets of reagents on each analyzer and/or module. Increasing the number of analyzers and/or modules, however, may require some samples be sent to more than one analyzer and/or module to complete their respective tests, increasing turn-around time. Additional analyzers and/or modules may also impose additional cost, maintenance, and footprint on the system.
Other conventional systems utilize batch processing which includes loading different subsets (batches) of the available test menu at different times. While batch processing may increase the different amount of tests used from an available test menu, batch processing typically requires samples to be run on an analyzer multiple times to complete their respective tests, increasing the turn-around time and the labor costs by requiring system operators to manually load and unload the reagent packs for each batch at the different times.